Connect

"We're ensuring their waste — is not wasted. We hope this art helps the hospital and research staff know their hard work ... is going to good use."

This is the latest installment in our Connect article series “Hope at Work” — showcasing inspiring stories about how our team members contribute to UVA Health’s 10-year strategic plan: “One Future Together Health and Hope for All.” No matter where you work, you have an opportunity to inspire hope in others. These stories show how:

Full Circle

When Zack Landsman’s lung collapsed in 2020, he became an inpatient for two weeks at UVA Health University Medical Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. “Going on walks was extremely hard,” he recalls, “but needed.” Admiring the art on the walls — during walks around the hospital with his mother — helped sustain his determination to recover.

Full circle as six years later, Zack’s sustainability art — "Waste Not: The Art of Plastic Recycling" — is in the spotlight on the hospital's second floor lobby mezzanine from March 2 to May 4 (including Earth Month!) — to be enjoyed by other patients and their families, visitors, and team members.

Resource Stewardship

Zack, now a PhD candidate in Systems Engineering at UVA, earned his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Cognitive Science with a minor in Technological Entrepreneurship, also from UVA. [UVA BME is a joint program of UVA School of Medicine and UVA School of Engineering and Applied Science; UVA School of Medicine is part of UVA and UVA Health.] 

In 2023, Zack started Junk Labz, with fellow UVA Systems Engineering alum Elly Zaryzksi (pictured above, left), to recycle No. 5 plastic waste from 30⁺ research labs — mostly at UVA School of Medicine and some around Charlottesville — to reduce shipping emissions and landfilled plastic, improve transparency, and create long lasting, unique “designz” from recycled plastic.

Zack says Junk Labz is the first plastic recycling center at UVA — and the only existing center to process #5 plastic in Charlottesville and turn the waste into usable material. He says this system follows what he hails as "incredible research" from Precious Plastic, an open-source plastic recycling project across Europe. The local recycling process does everything in Charlottesville under one roof: collection, sorting, crushing, shredding, and sheet pressing into a transformed material. Watch JunkLabz in action!

All Hands on Deck

Originally, Zack and Elly began their sustainability journey with a project recycling UVA’s electronic waste into wind turbine STEM kits that they then taught lessons with at local Charlottesville Schools. However, they quickly realized the plastic salvaged from these old devices had no place to go, with a lack of plastic recycling in the United States: only 8.7% of U.S. plastic was recycled in 2021, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. This left them to apply and receive a grant from The Jefferson Trust, in July 2023, to bring trustworthy plastic recycling to Charlottesville.

Junk Labz received funding to purchase machinery including a plastic shredder. From there, it became a group effort with help across Grounds:

• UVA School of Architecture’s FabLab Managers Melissa Goldman and Trevor Kemp; Assistant Professor of Architecture JT Bachman, and Fabrication Lab Technician and Sawmilling Coordinator Andrew Spears
• UVA Sustainability’s Sustainable Labs Program Manager Fiona Hogan Bradford and Green Labs Outreach and Engagement Specialist Sydney Kuczenski
• UVA School of Engineering Experiential Learning Center Manager Sebring Smith
• UVA School of Medicine iLab
• UVA Licensing and Ventures Group
• And more.

In summer 2025, three interns with UVA Decarbonization Academy — the paid, immersive, summer sustainability learning experience for students supporting UVA’s aim to become carbon-neutral by 2030 and fossil fuel free by 2050 — came on board. Annie Zhao, Isabel Hamilton, and Matthew Rusten helped Junk Labz shred almost 420 pounds of plastic.

In fall 2025, Junk Labz worked with UVA Sustainability’s Sydney Kuczenski and Jason Snow to set up centralized collection and more than three events, which gathered 635+ pounds of material for JunkLabz. Zack estimates this equates to roughly 5,000 pipette tip boxes (imagine 21 of the fabled UVA Rotundas, stacked on top of each other!).  

Since opening, Junk Labz has shred 2,150 pounds of plastic and engaged hundreds of UVA students. 

Paying Homage

Now, you can view the art made from recycled plastic March 2 to May 4 — the first featured in a new art panel installed by UVA Health Arts Committee. 

“We created three sheets of recycled #5 plastic from collected pipette tip boxes,” describes Zack. “For an interesting layout, we then used a CNC [computer numerical control] router to cut out abstract shapes to arrange and display. The center piece is a UVA-inspired sheet with orange and blue plastic cut into three pieces to pay homage to the three pillars of classic sustainability: reduce, reuse, recycle.”

He adds that the arrangement of abstract shapes on either side symbolizes the more creative sustainability solutions needed to tackle individual waste streams, such as recycling plastic pipette boxes. The two sheets on either side are a green and purple sheet and a blue and yellow sheet. In addition, there are info graphics explaining the Junk Labz process and journey, and examples of the recycled pipette boxes and shredded plastic before melting. 

Serving as an Example

“I’m extremely proud as the display allows us to show that UVA/UVA Health labs and groups have been putting in the hard work of collecting. We're ensuring their waste — is not wasted. I’ve been very lucky to have support in setting all this up and proud to have this be a ‘Thank you!’ to all those participating in recycling, and all those who helped us get here. We hope this art helps the hospital and research staff know their hard work collecting plastic waste is going to good use and serving as an example for future waste diversion projects.”

Adds Zack: “The art in the University Medical Center halls during my hospital stay gave me something to look forward to, so I'm excited to be able to add my sustainable art to the walls, and I hope this can do the same for patients, visitors, and staff.” 

Second Life 

“Sustainability art sits at the intersection of environmental awareness, social responsibility, and creative practice,” describes Anne B. Brown, UVA Health Environmental Experience and Arts Program Manager. “Artists use their work to question how we live, consume, and care for the planet. It’s a compelling story of how what we throw away doesn’t disappear — it quietly reshapes our world.”

Adds Anne: "By taking plastic waste and transforming it into art, discarded objects are given a second life. Each piece carries the trace of its former purpose: a bottle, a box, a fragment — and invites the observer to confront their own relationship to consumption while imagining new possibilities for renewal.”

Check out "Waste Not: The Art of Plastic Recycling," March 2 to May 4 (including Earth Month!), second floor lobby mezzanine, UVA Health University Medical Center, 1215 Lee Street, Charlottesville, Virginia, 22903. Want to get involved? Volunteer/intern, recycle, or get a closer look at Junk Labz.